Seth, your father always has me to blame,

perhaps, rightly so.  We both were weak,

but I was bolder; more easily snared

by honeyed words and glittering eyes.

 

Given no chance to reflect or repent,

we were abruptly yanked from naiveté.

The embittering truth of our sullen days

crushed us to chaff, dry as this hot wind.

 

“The woman whom thou gavest to be

with me, she gave me of the tree, and

I did eat.” Your father played the dutiful son,

accusing me cruelly. I was no better.

 

The other bore my blame; he with

the most beautiful skin of enameled

green hues and eyes so fearless

in their un-blinking expectations of me.

 

Your brothers are forever lost to you.

Both had fallen before you were born;

Cain still flees his brothers blood

that seeps and whispers from this ground.

 

A child myself, born grown, no nurture,

no mothers’ touch and love;

I felt no kin to Father, man, nor beast.

I was that beetle, Seth, you toy with your stick.

 

Regret and blame, they rule your father’s days.

The other tree, if I had eaten of it instead;

Eternal Life and then Knowledge?

No.  It was better this way.

The inspiration for this came from the story of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden taken from Genesis in the Bible.  Would we prefer ignorant bliss or sorrowful knowledge if the choice was ours to make?  This poem stands as I left it in August 2002.